Obedience Brings Miracles

<----------------------  Here is my mailing address!!

Hi Family and friends!

Ok, can I just say that I am SO HAPPY and SO RELIEVED that Jess is married. This weekend was the hardest weekend of my life.

Friday and Saturday morning, I was on exchanges with Sister Rodriguez, another Spanish missionary and she is awesome and we had so much fun Anyway, it was Friday and I tried my very best to be busy and think about the work and not think about what is going to happen Saturday.

I am so grateful for the sister missionaries in this mission. We are so supportive of each other and everyone has been so kind to me, with me being a new missionary, and also with the wedding coming up. There is a sister called Sister Jones and she has been out for a while but for some reason, I have made a connection with her and I absolutely love her. She was on exchanges with Sister Poleo, who lives across the hall from us. I considered that a blessing from Heavenly Father because Sister Jones just made me feel SO much better and she wrote me the sweetest note in the world, and I read it on Saturday and that helped me so much. 

So.....Saturday. I just have to say that I tried so hard to be busy and not think about the wedding, and I did a pretty good job.....until about 8:30 at night. We were walking around an apartment complex, not talking to anyone and so that was when my mind started to wander and I started thinking about the wedding reception that I was missing......and then I started crying, and then I started wondering why I was even on a mission, and then I started "screaming" in my mind "I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I AM MISSING MY SISTER'S WEDDING!" "WHY AM I EVEN HERE?" "I WANT TO GO HOME!" "I WANT TO BE WITH MY FAMILY!". These sentences just kept repeating in my mind, over and over and over. I couldn't get them out. And to be honest, I didn't want to try to get them out, I wanted to feel sad and i didn't want to try to move on.......I don't know why and I know that thinking those thoughts weren't gonna help me at all but I was tired of trying to NOT think about it, if that makes sense. So we biked home and I put those thoughts aside and starting planning for the next day and I got distracted with all of the planning and felt a lot better.......and then... the sisters brought me the cake pops from the reception, which the Stevensons dropped off. Then I started crying again :/ Everything just came crashing down and Sister Porter, the sister across the hall, just hugged me while I cried. Her brother got married last month so she understands what I am going through and feeling. I know that I sound like a cry baby but sometimes, crying just makes you feel better. I am crying right now just writing about this. Once I cry about it, I can move on and I feel better. So I looked at some pictures and now I am done writing about the wedding......I am just gonna move on:)

Thank you for the food and socks and shorts and cookie dough. Thank you so much to Aunt Carol and Janna for helping with all the fun treats and food and stuff! I am so grateful for everything and that saves me a lot of money from using my missionary debit card. Thank you for the bookmark and notebooks and "Forget yourself and go to work" plaque, I put it on my desk with the cake pops.

The Hunts also sent me a package too! I was so excited!! Thanks Brad for the sweatshirt!!

BTW, this is a rule from President Moffat: We can't have packages sent to the mission office, they need to go to our apartment. Make sure that my apartment address is on the blog.

So, now I want to talk about the miracle that happened. I knew miracles would happen because when you are obedient, you receive blessings. So on Saturday, we were biking around and no one was home, but then we got a text from a man named Marcos, a potential investigator who we called and invited to church on Monday. He texted us on Saturday and asked us what time church was and the address! We haven't even met him! So we told him and that he could follow us to church the next day and he said that would be great! So on Sunday, we went to his apartments with a member family and we called him and he said that he was waiting for us in his car. So he just followed us in his car to the capilla (chapel) and then we FINALLY  met him in the church parking lot! We taught him that night.  He isn't on date for baptism yet but he is GOLDEN! We have an appointment with him tonight at 5, yes we are sacrificing an hour of our P-Day to teach him, he only has Tuesdays and Sundays off. Then after his appointment, we are teaching David Archuleta's Grandpa! That's right...
So tonight, I will be meeting David's family and possibly David Archuleta!!! :D

So....that is pretty much it for this week. Missionary life is getting easier and more enjoyable, but it is still hard. And I know that some people probably think that I complain a lot about how hard mission life is, and that I should just suck it up and enjoy it.............but missionary life is hard. People never talk about how HARD it is when they are giving their homecoming talk. Some days are just horrible and you want to go home, but then you have those little experiences, or tender mercies from the Lord and they give you strength to make it through one more day. And maybe some people think that I should just come home, since it is hard and I don't have to be here, but I know that it is through these hard and challenging experiences that we become more like God, a refiner's fire. This last weekend was the hottest fire I have ever been in but I know that there is a reason for everything and that God is aware of my situation. 

I love you all. Everyone looks so beautiful in those pictures, I was amazed. I am so blessed. I hope Jess liked her gift, it was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. 

I love you all so much and I can't wait to talk to you on May 11th! Less than one month!

Have a great week and I will talk to you next Tuesday! SLY!

Hermana Warren